Hollendorfer joins the training elite

Jerry Hollendorfer was exercising on his treadmill at his home in Point Richmond early Saturday evening when he became the fourth trainer in North American racing history to reach 5,000 winners.

"I think I started going faster when the horse came down the stretch," he said in a telephone interview after Political High rallied past Dr. Sinatra to win the 11th race at Hollywood Park and give Hollendorfer his 5,000th victory.

Hollendorfer went into Saturday with 4,998 winners and had two horses running at Hollywood Park with assistant trainer Dan Ward and one at Golden Gate Fields. Gold Trim used a strong stretch run to win the third race at Hollywood, but Alottadar finished fourth in the eighth race at Golden Gate Fields.

Although it would have been more fitting for Hollendorfer to have reached the milestone at Golden Gate Fields or Bay Meadows - where he has been the leading trainer at every meeting since 1985 - the way it happened was appropriate.

The two wins came with horses he claimed out of their most recent starts, and those blue-collar types have been the backbone of his operation.

He also just started keeping a portion of his stable in Southern California in the past year, and he has had by far his most success there recently. His two wins Saturday gave him 11 for the Hollywood Park meeting and put him in a tie for second with Mike Mitchell and Patrick Gallagher behind only John Sadler's 21.

Finally, Dr. George Todaro, a Seattle-area physician, was part owner of both of Saturday's winners, and he long has been Hollendorfer's No. 1 client.

"This is something you can't plan," Hollendorfer said. "I look at it that I'm one of the fortunate ones to have had a lot of opportunities. I appreciate the owners who put up the money for my stable, and Dr. Todaro has put up so much. We've had a lot of victories and a lot of hard times, too."

Hollendorfer, 58, was born and raised in Akron, Ohio, and first came to California in the late 1960s to visit friends.

"I started coming to the track and made a little money betting, and I wondered what it would be like to get on the other side, to work with horses," he said in an earlier interview.

Hollendorfer worked for trainers Jerry Dutton and Jerry Fanning, advancing from cleaning stalls to becoming an assistant trainer. He took out his trainer's license in 1979 and had spotty success through 1984, winning with 59 of 457 starters.

He began going in as partner on horses with his owners and won 56 races in 1985. He claimed Novel Sprite for $16,000, and developed her into a stakes-winner, and his career blossomed. He has won at least 192 races in each of the past 20 years with a high of 308 in 2004 and his victories include two Kentucky Oaks, a Hollywood Futurity and several other Grade 1 events.

"Every successful endeavor takes a certain amount of luck," Hollendorfer said Saturday. "I've been in the right place at the right time. My career took off when someone else might not have gotten a chance. There are a lot of people in the background who help every day."

The major contributor is Hollendorfer's wife, Janet, a highly respected horsewoman even before they met.

"She's just the catalyst, she's the adhesive that holds everything together," Hollendorfer said. "She's very good with injuries and spotting them before they get serious. She's my adviser. She keeps step and step with me, and it makes it double strong when you have someone standing with you all the time."